Kodak

LG buys Kodak's OLED unit

oled — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:47:58 -0500

Kodak announced today that they have sold all their OLED related assets to a group of LG companies. Kodak will still have access to the technology to use in its own product.

Kodak is doing this to strengthen their financial situation. They also recognize that in order to realize the full value of the OLED business, it needs a significant investment.

This is a sad day for Kodak I think - they have invented OLEDs in 1970 and have been working on the technology for 40 years now (!). It'll be interesting to see what LG will do with Kodak's IP (which is mostly about Fluorescent OLEDs and manufacturing equipment). In any case, LG is showing that they are truly committed to OLEDs.

Top OLED gadgets for the 2009 holiday season

oled — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:13:50 -0500

So the 2009 holiday season is almost here - and obviously you'd like a new gadget with an OLED display. So what are your options?

OLED TVs

Sadly, there aren't that many OLED TVs around as we'd hope for. Sony is still selling the XEL-1 (at around $2,200) - but you should hurry, as they have stopped the production line, and will soon stop offering this TV. Your other option is LG's 15" OLED TV - but this is currently available in Korea only, for around $2600. It's probably best to wait a few years before actually buying an OLED TV...

Mobile phones

There are many OLED phones you can choose from... it seems that every week Samsung releases yet another smartphone with a large touch OLED. Samsung currently offers dozens of models - including the Impression, the Moment, the Behold II, the Omnia II and the Jet. Nokia is offering the N86 and even HP recently announced an OLED phone - the iPAQ Glisten.

Samsung Moment

Digital Cameras

Compared to mobile phones, there are very little OLED digital cameras around... There's the Samsung TL320 and the NV24HD, and also Nikon's new S70 - with a large touch AMOLED, 12Mp sensor and 5X optical zoo.

Nikon S70

The new Kodak Challenge trophy has 3 OLED displays

oled — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:48:25 -0500

Kodak has made a special new trophy for their Kodak Challenge (Gold tournament). It includes 3 OLED displays (which are probably the 7.6" photo frames), showing a slideshow of photos from the golf tournament.

Here's the making-of story of this trophy.

Ignis Innovation reports breakthroughs in AMOLED backplane tech

oled — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:51:15 -0400

IGNIS Innovation, in partnership with Kodak and Prime View International (PVI), has developed a 5" segment of a 32" OLED HDTV AMOLED display, using industry standard amorphous silicon thin film transistors (TFT). The prototype uses IGNIS' MaxLIfe solution, which compensates separately for both the TFT and LED degradation using only an electrical feedback - an industry first. This technology does not use any optical sensors which are unreliable.

IGNIS reports 20 years lifetime (when watching 12 hours a day), there is no burn-in images (the MaxLife technology keeps differential aging to 3% or less). The prototype was built using an amorphous silicon backplane from PVI using their standard a-Si LCD mass production process while the frontplane uses Kodak's long life and low power RGBW technology that delivers a vivid and outstanding viewing experience. They say that this combination provides the first reliable, low ost and scalable architecture.

Happy OLED Halloween from Kodak...

oled — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:38:49 -0400

Kodak is wishing us all a happy Halloween - using OLED lighting panels instead of candles:

And here's a photo of the actual OLED lighting panels (mounted on a glass fixtures):

Kodak OLED updates

oled — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 05:55:46 -0400

In June 2008, I interviewed Corey Hewitt and Dr. James Buntaine from Kodak OLED Systems.

Mr. Corey Hewitt is the co-general manager, operations manager and VP of Kodak OLED Systems. Dr. James Buntaine is the second co-general manager, and also the CTO and VP.

They were kind enough to send us an update on Kodak's OLED program and market outlook:

Kodak OLED Technology Update & Advancements

Kodak expertise and experience lies in material discovery, organic layer design, mechanistic understanding, image science, panel/module design, and manufacturing technology. These key value drivers associated with the Kodak technology, know-how and patents, maintain Kodak as an industry leader in enabling both the OLED flat-panel display and OLED solid-state lighting industries. Provided below are selected key areas technology and Kodak accomplishments:

Kodak shows flexible OLEDs under water

oled — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 04:30:53 -0400

Kodak is showing a new demo of their flexible OLEDs - working under water:

Here's some closeups of the flexible OLED:

Back in April, Japan's ITO electronics also showed waterproof OLEDs.

Kodak and Novaled develop new white OLED for RGBW displays

oled — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:40:27 -0400

Novaled and Kodak have developed anew white PIN OLED, to be used in RGBW displays. The display is based on Novaled's p-type and n-type doped transprot layers and Kodak's emitter systems. The companies showed two devices - single unit and tandem-white OLEDs.

For the single unit devices, 15.8-cd/A with a lifetime of 30,000 hours and color coordinates of 0.32/0.35 at 1,000 candelas per square meter were reached. In the tandem device approach a current efficiency of 33.2 cd/A at color coordinates 0.28/0.31 was achieved. The lifetime of the device was 77,000 hours compared to 51,000 hours that were reached with devices based on conventional Li-doping for the connector unit

In a display simulation the tandem device compares favorably with a conventional tandem device based on Li-doped p-n connectors; allowing display lifetime to be improved from 38,000 to 53,000 hours.

Kodak OLED lighting video

oled — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:29:03 -0400

Kodak has kindly sent us a new video showing their new OLED lighting panels (preceded by some Kodak 'ads'). Kodak are still working on the technical issues of their OLEDs, but they are also seeking potential collaboration with other companies to bring these to market.

Just a few days ago Kodak received a 1.7M$ project from the US Department of Energy to develop OLED lighting - 15cmx15cm panels with over 50lm/W efficiency and over 20,000h lifetime.

More info about Kodak's white lighting project

oled — Thu, 28 May 2009 06:18:26 -0400

Yesterday we reported that Kodak got a 1.7M$ two-year contact from the DOE to develop key technologies and processes for OLED lighting panels. There wasn't much information in the original PR, so we got Kodak to explain it a bit for us, and here's what they say:

"The object of the proposed project is to construct OLED lighting panels with efficacy (> 50 lm/W) and lifetime (>20,000 h) superior to most of the current commercially available luminaires. The lighting panels will be constructed of 15 cm x 15 cm lighting tiles that can be used to build lighting panels of different sizes and shapes. The architecture is based on small molecule OLED and comprises four key technology components that enable this achievement: internal light extraction-enhancement structure, low voltage design, stacked architecture, and fluorescent-phosphorescent hybrid emitters. The proposed project will focus on developing structures and processes suitable for high volume, low cost manufacturing (ie Kodak VIST technology) of these OLED lighting panels."